Adobe Illustrator freezing on Windows 10

[#1]

At some point while working on a file, Illustrator will pause/stall before I can continue working. Whether it's typing text, moving a box, or panning my view, Illustrator will freeze/menus turn black and I can't do anything for several seconds. If I quit Illustrator and restart, the problem goes away but eventually returns during my session.

It's difficult to troubleshoot because it seems unrelated to the action or file size. It's almost like there's a memory-intensive background operation competing with the application or something.

This has happened in the last 4 or 5 versions of Illustrator. Is there a cache or network action contributing to the problem?

Windows 10 Pro

32 GB RAM

NVIDIA Quadro T2000

Intel UHD Graphics 630

{Renamed by MOD}

[#2]

At some point while working on a file, Illustrator will pause/stall before I can continue working. Whether it's typing text, moving a box, or panning my view, Illustrator will freeze/menus turn black and I can't do anything for several seconds. If I quit Illustrator and restart, the problem goes away but eventually returns during my session.

It's difficult to troubleshoot because it seems unrelated to the action or file size. It's almost like there's a memory-intensive background operation competing with the application or something.

This has happened in the last 4 or 5 versions of Illustrator. Is there a cache or network action contributing to the problem?

Windows 10 Pro

32 GB RAM

NVIDIA Quadro T2000

Intel UHD Graphics 630

{Renamed by MOD}

[#3 · Accepted solution]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about your experience. Please make sure Adobe Illustrator, Windows and GPU drivers are updated to the latest version. Once done, try using the app and let us know how it goes.

Additionally, I would request if you can try the following steps and share your observation: 

1. Reset Preferences:  

-Close all Adobe applications.  

-Go to Location C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Adobe  

-Rename Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Illustrator 24 Settings folders to Adobe Illustrator.old and Adobe Illustrator 24 Settings.old  

-Launch Illustrator from the Creative Cloud.  

Disclaimer: Please note that resetting preferences will remove all the custom settings and Illustrator will launch with default settings. This way all your old settings will be saved in .old folders and Illustrator will recreate new folders with default settings.  

2. If that doesn't help, try booting the system into Safe Mode (https://support.microsoft.com/en-in/help/12376/windows-10-start-your-pc-in-safe-mode) and check how it works there. It starts your system so that it performs certain checks and prevents third party software/ services from automatically loading or opening. If it works fine in Safe mode, then there is some third party service or application like antivirus, plugins or web extensions which are conflicting with the Illustrator. 

3.  If that doesn't help either, login to Hidden Admin account (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfbMs3w-Z3s&t=53s). Check how the application works there. If it works fine there, then it could be related to permission errors. Follow these steps to repair permission errors: https://helpx.adobe.com/in/illustrator/kb/preferences-folder-read-only-error.html 

4. If nothing helps, then we need to troubleshoot this on a live session. Please head here (https://helpx.adobe.com/support.html) and select the chat button in the lower-right corner of the page. We can help on a live session that way.

Hope it helps.

Regards,

Ashutosh